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Inventions and Innovations

An interview with Ray Pointer: Part Three

Part Three of our series of interviews with animator, historian and author Ray Pointer focuses on Max Fleischer's many inventions and innovations. Pointer's background as an animator helps to put Max's innovations into context and offers a fascinating glimpse into the challenges and ambitions of early animation.

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Jane: Your book goes to great length in placing the story of Fleischer Studios into historical context. What was the state of the art in the industry at the time?

Ray: Motion pictures were a new medium that had only been around less than 20 years when Max came in. During that period, there was a lot of experimentation and finding of a common standard. A lot of this had to do with the inventions of others. This is important to realize since everything had to be invented from the start.

The first animation experiments came between 1906 and 1911. The first that we know of was J. Stuart Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, which was more of a demonstration of Stop Motion techniques using growing line segments and cutouts. Then, in 1908, Emile Cohl in France released what is probably the first true animated cartoon, Fantasmagorie. Cohl made successive positions in drawings and photographed them frame-by-frame. So, by definition, he can be recognized as the first true "Animator."

Three years later, the American cartoonist Winsor McCay started his experiments beginning with Little Nemo Moving Comics which was first seen in 1911. He made two more animated cartoons after this. The most famous was Gertie The Trained Dinosaur, which was designed as an interactive film for a Vaudeville act. This caught the attention of many aspiring animators, including Max Fleischer.

Even before Gertie, another cartoonist, John Bray, saw the commercial potential of animated cartoons. Bray was a friend of Max's from their days working at The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Story has it that Bray, using his previous association with the paper, posed as a reporter and visited McCay claiming to be working on a story about his processes for making animated cartoons. Bray discovered that McCay never registered any patents on his methods. To be technically and legally accurate, McCay did not develop any original devices that merited a patent. The only device he used was a variation of The Mutoscope where he mounted his drawings onto a type of slotted cylinder operated by a hand crank. By placing his hand against the top edge, the cranking created a "flipping" of the action. This is how he checked his action before photography. The device in itself was not unique enough to merit a patent since the concept it was based on had already passed into the Public Domain.

But what needs to be realized is that the early equipment was rather crude and limited. Many things had to be invented as more possibilities were being realized. This is what Max discovered when he got involved.

Jane: So where did Max come in on all this?

Ray: Well, as you know, Max already had an established career as a Technical Illustrator, which led him to the position of Art Editor for Popular Science Magazine. Max's friend, John Bray, had started one of the first studios to produce animated cartoons for movie theaters. This started the same year that McCay was performing with his Gertie The Trained Dinosaur act. Bray and another cartoonist, Earl Hurd had realized the concept of the cel overlay technique and combined their patents to control its use in animation production for a number of years. But these cartoons were produced in haste and without a great deal of knowledge of drawing or animation principles. They were very crude compared to the elegant drawing and action by McCay, who took two years to make his cartoons.

One evening, Max's boss Waldemar Klaempffert and his wife attended the movies and saw one of these early theatrical cartoons. Klaempffert's wife, referring to the crude and jerky execution of the animation said, "Oh, how I hate these things!" The next day, Klaempffert told Max about the experience and said to him, "Max you're a bright fellow. You know about photography and mechanics. Can't you find a way to make animated cartoons look better?" This was both ironic and timely.

Jane: How was that?

Ray: Max's brothers Charley and Joe set out to operate an outdoor movie theater in Brooklyn. But with the summer heat and an infestation of mosquitoes, it failed. This was finalized when the Loew's Pitkin Theater was built across the street. After the bankruptcy was settled, the brothers were left with some folding chairs and the Moy projector. Using parts from the projector, and an automobile headlight and auto battery as a light source, Joe built Max's first Rotoscope.

Jane: What were some of the discoveries Max made when he got involved?

Ray: Well, as I said earlier, the equipment was rather crude in the beginning because the cameras and projectors were all hand cranked. There was no guarantee of consistent rotation and rhythm which affected consistent exposures on the film, which resulted in flickering images on the projected print. These flickers were increased by the hand cranking of the projectors as well. Adding to this were the single blade shutters used on the first equipment. This was a problem that Max discovered when he rented the camera he used to film his first experiment. These problems were eventually overcome with improved camera shutters and devices designed to control consistent exposures for single frame photography. This was important since the first cameras had no control over the opening and closing of the shutter as the film was advanced a frame at a time. And what is most amazing is that a judgment had to be made as to what degree of the crank turn equaled the advancement of a frame. These things were eventually controlled with the introduction of electric motors and solenoids. And these are things that Max came to realize in his early work and many times were the motivation for some of his inventions.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces,, J. Stuart Blackton (1906)

Fantasmagorie, Emile Cohl (1908)

Gertie the Trained Dinosaur. Windsor McCay (1914)

Colonel Heeza Liar at Bat, Bray Studios (1915)

The Clown's Pup, Max Fleischer (1919)

The first Rotoscope, built in Max's own Brooklyn living room.

Drawing from Max Fleischer’s patent application for what came to be referred to as ‘The ‘set-back’’ or ‘The Slide.’ The 3D set in the rear serves as a background, with celluloid drawings (‘cels’) placed on the stand in front of it. A movie camera is located in front of this set-up. As ‘cels’ are changed (to show the action), the set in the background is also moved very slightly.

Dave Fleischer turns the crank on a ‘set-back’ model.

Jane: That's an interesting point you bring up in your book. You also mention that Max's inventions were not developed for immediate commercial exploitation. It makes you wonder why he bothered to develop them.

Ray: Back in those days things were still evolving. And your place in the business was often based on having a unique "gimmick" that gave you a "brand." So most of Max's inventions were developed to create a uniqueness to his films, making them identifiable among the competition. This was certainly recognized in his use of The Rotoscope technique as well as the other techniques he developed.

Jane: Would the Bouncing Ball be another?

Ray: Yes. Sing-alongs were a staple in theaters going back to the use of Lantern Slides. But it was the introduction of the "Bouncing Ball" tempo indicator that was a Fleischer exclusivity. This was an entertaining curiosity, and has become an icon of American culture. We continue to see it come up every once in a while today in television commercials. But I'm sure that people are not aware of where it came from. Well, this was it.

Jane: Your book places emphasis on Max's inventions. Everyone seems to have heard of the Bouncing Ball and The Rotoscope. What were some of his other inventions?

Ray: Well, perhaps his third most recognized invention was the 3D effect credited as "The Stereoptical Process." The studio reference was "Setbacks." And the device that these scenes were assigned to was referred to as "the Setback Camera."

Jane: What was a "Setback?"

Ray: That was a short hand terminology for what were model set backgrounds. They were made as miniature stage sets using forced perspective. Instead of placing the cels over a flat painted background, the cels were shot upright with the camera looking through and with the model set working behind. This had a number of advantages since the lighting could be changed to go from a day to a night scene using the same set. And because the background used real space, the camera could move towards the background as well as Pan horizontally. This created the parallax effect you see due to the separate planes of perspective.

Jane: This sounds like something that Disney referred to as 'Multiplane."

Ray: Disney came up with a similar separate plane concept later. But it used flat painted elements separated on levels of glass. It was used to advantage for Approach and Retract Shots. But Pans were more complicated since the increments for advancement had to be calculated and moved for each level. Disney's Multiplane Camera stood several feet high and required more than one operator. Many times operators were assigned to each active level to ensure that those levels were advanced consistently with each exposure.

Jane: Wow! That sounds awfully complicated.

Ray: It was, and by comparison, the Fleischer method seemed less complicated and more practical since it required only one operator. But the animation had to be planned for a single level at best, certainly no more than two levels to lessen the chance for error. But when they first started using it there was an inconsistency in the look between the set backgrounds and the flat painted backgrounds. This was later overcome when the Background Department was integrated into painting the models.

Jane: Even with today's technology, people still find these effects stunning in spite of the more sophisticated technology of today. Why do you suppose this is?

Ray: It's similar to people's attraction to the old cartoons that were done by hand. It's the human element that connects with audiences regardless of how aware they may be of how it was done. People sense that human connection due to the hand crafting and intelligence involved.

Seeing the finished product, it seems easy to take it for granted because it all worked so well. And the audience deserves to take it for granted so long as they enjoy what they see. But the fact is that all of these things are the result of a natural intellectual process. And, as I lay out more fully in my book, all of the things that made Fleischer animation so special had to be invented. Without them, we would not have some of the advanced techniques enjoyed today.

So it was the works of the great pioneers who laid the foundation. And Max Fleischer was one of those pioneers. That is the story I set out to tell in my book, along with the associated stories of how it came about and how it came to an end. It was quite a journey, and the reader will be taken on this "magical mystery tour" with many of the questions answered and mysteries solved.

Read more of our interview with Ray Pointer. Go to:

Part One

Part Two

Part Four

Ray Pointer

Ray Pointer “rolled off the Assembly Line" at Henry Ford Hospital on July 4, 1952. He attended Special Ability Art classes at The Detroit Institute of Arts, and graduated from Cass Technical High School, earning a Commercial Art degree. He attended Wayne State University and the University of Southern California, Department of Cinema/Television.

A self-taught filmmaker, Ray experimented with animation from 1963 to 1973, with his first professional exposure at The Jam Handy Organization in Detroit. And in 1973, he received the first Student Oscar for the cartoon short, Goldnavel.

Ray served in the U.S. Navy as a Motion Picture Specialist, serving in a junior officer’s position as Producer for Navy Broadcasting in Washington D.C. During this period, he received The Gold Screen Award from the National Association of Government Communicators for the animated television spots: Pride and Professionalism and Shore Patrol.

In the 1990s, Ray was active in the Animation Renaissance on the west coast, as an Assistant Animator and Storyboard Artist for Film Roman, DIC Entertainment, Hanna-Barbera, Universal, Disney Interactive, Fred Wolf Films, MGM, and Nickelodeon, where he advanced to Animation Director. In 1996, Ray became an active member of The Animation Peer Group of The Television Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 2009, Ray has been an Adjunct Professor in Digital Media at Kendall College of Art and design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2000, Ray began assembling a selection of the early Max Fleischer Out of the Inkwell and Ko-Ko Song Car-tunes films, which are available on DVD from his web site, www.inkwellimagesink.com.

To learn more about Ray Pointer's search for Out of the Inkwell films - check out: